@ifixcoinops I wouldn't call Lemmy --a fediverse Reddit alternative-- a perfect match for straight-up *forum* software, but I would call it the closest existing *federated* match.
Granted, the built-in time decay of environments like Reddit is in stark contrast to old-school forums, where pinned threads and user activity were the only drivers of what showed up for users to see.
I too am curious to see what the state of the art looks like these days.
@aspensmonster @ifixcoinops
now you can use LemmyBB, which does look like a regular phpbb forum with a federated backend
https://github.com/LemmyNet/lemmyBB